“Many of the people on the petition are gun owners,” Brosky said. “This is all about safety.”

Discussion about the proposed ordinance escalated when teachers and students reported hearing shots at the elementary school. Federal law already makes it a crime to knowingly bring a gun on to school property.

Hunting and self-defense shooting would still be allowed under the ordinance.

Brosky led members of the selectboard through some backyard ranges Saturday. The property owners said they are playing it safe, but Brosky pointed out what he said were bullet holes on a silo on one property, less than a half-mile from the ranges in question.

Also on hand Saturday was Clint Gray, president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs. He checked out the alleged bullet holes and also looked at the ranges for safety.

Gray said he could not be sure whether the holes on the silo were in fact from a bullet. One shooting range owner said they looked more like air pockets that had burst.

“I can't tell you that they did 100 percent,” Gray said about bullets hitting the silo, “but I definitely can't tell you that there wasn't one or two that went through there.”

Gray did it is up to land owners to make sure bullets stay on their property. He noted the 2008 case of Joseph McCarthy, the Essex, Vt., man convicted in the death of his neighbor.

A stray bullet from McCarthy’s property killed John Reiss, who was sitting down to dinner. McCarthy was sentenced to two years in prison.

“The responsibility is that once the projectile leaves that firearm, it's there's,” Gray said about who is accountable on the backyard ranges. “It doesn't necessarily mean that they're the ones pulling the trigger,” he said.

Gray also said some of the ranges were set up in such a way that bullets could deflect off of trees or tires.

One backyard range owner said her family has lived in the area for nearly two decades and has never received any complaints.

In the meantime, Gray suggested those with makeshift ranges invest in backstops meant to make sure bullets will not go where they are not meant to.

For Brosky, he said the backyard ranges are dangerous and a commercial gun range is just a few miles away.